More than half of Europe and the Mediterranean basin was hit by drought in July for the fourth consecutive month, according to an AFP analysis of European Drought Observatory data.

Drought levels in the region are the highest on record for the month of July since data collection began in 2012, exceeding the 2012-2024 average by 21 percent.

Monthly records have been broken every month this year. The data shows 52% of the region has experienced drought since April.

The data was reported as Israel undergoes an extreme heat wave, expected to break records on Wednesday and Thursday, and after the Israel Meteorological Service reported that between December and February, less than 40% of the average seasonal rainfall was measured. Usually, those are the country’s wettest months.

The Drought Observatory Indicator determined by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service uses satellite imagery to measure three parameters: precipitation or rainfall, soil moisture and the state of vegetation.

Findings are then categorized into one of three levels of drought: watch, warning and alert — the last level signaling that vegetation is developing abnormally.

Amos Porat, director of Climate Services at the Israel Meteorological Service (IMS), told the Times of Israel on Sunday that the eastern part of the country was expected to be hardest hit by the heat wave, from the Hula Valley and the Sea of Galilee in the northeast down to the Arava Desert in the south.

Temperatures in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee are expected to hit 49°C and 47°C respectively (120°F and 116.6°F) on Wednesday and Thursday. The record for the area is 45.9°C (114.6 °F).

Porat said it was difficult to pinpoint the reasons for the current heatwave. Heatwaves are common during the summer, he explained. “But the intensity, the length, the extreme temperatures [we are seeing], are quite possibly related to climate change.”

Israel is a climate “hotspot,” where temperatures are rising faster than the global average.

Elsewhere in the region, Turkey has been hit by a prolonged drought affecting more than 60% of the soil since March, leading to thousands of fires this summer. On August 8, wildfires in the west of the country forced authorities to suspend shipping in the busy Dardanelles Strait and evacuate three villages.

Iran and Iraq have also coped recently with extreme heat.

Eastern Europe and the Balkans are also particularly affected, with a high amount of soil under alert in multiple countries. In Hungary, the percentage of soil under alert increased from nine percent in June to 56% percent in July. In Kosovo, it went from six percent to 43%, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina from one percent to 23%.

Multiple heatwaves have swept the Balkans since the start of the summer and a record number of wildfires have broken out. Some are caused by poorly managed and illegal dumpsites bursting into flames under the scorching sun, smothering towns and cities with toxic smoke.

In Western Europe, the situation is more mixed. In France, 68% of the soil was affected by drought in July, up from 44% in June. France experienced one of its largest wildfires in history last week when flames tore through 13,000 hectares (more than 32,000 acres) of the southern Aude department, killing one person and injuring several others. The country is now facing its second heatwave of the summer.

In the United Kingdom, which had its driest spring in more than 50 years, drought levels improved in July, although more than two-thirds of the country remains in water deficit.

In Southern Europe, Spain and Portugal remain relatively spared with low drought rates (seven percent and five percent, respectively).